TURKEY ENCHILADAS WITH MOLE

• 1 small onion 
• 3 cups cold turkey
• Chopped Cilantro
• Mole Sauce
• Corn Tortilla's
• Monterrey jack

Apparently, turkey (aka guajolote) with mole is a typical celebration meal in parts of Mexico. Turns out the flavor combination can be easily re-configured as turkey enchiladas. To start, pull out your food chopper and pulse one small onion and about 3 cups cold turkey. Do this separately, and then add together in a mixing bowl with some chopped up cilantro.

Next you make your mole. There are a number of different ways to tackle this, ranging in purity of approach. You could make it all from scratch and lose two days of your life, or, on the other extreme, just buy it pre-made at the store. I prefer to split the difference and buy a starter paste from one of our favorite Oaxacan restaurants in LA: Gualeguetza. Simply chop up about two cups fresh tomato, sautee in a heavy bottom pan, add the mole paste. (It will be thick, sticky, and most likely stain your fingers and any surface it touches so proceed with caution.) Then add about a quart of stock--I use chicken, but you could use that broth that you made from boiling the turkey neck that you set aside and never used. Bring to boil, adjust the heat down to med-low, and let reduce for about ten minutes while you tackle the tortillas.

Like the mole sauce, you could go all out and make tortillas from scratch. But given the fact that we are going to give these guys a double flavor dip, store bought corn tortillas will work just fine. Using a nonstick pan and a trusty bottle of spray oil, lightly fry each tortilla, turning after about 20 seconds or until they start to bubble up a bit and get slightly browned.

Stack on a plate and keep covered so they don't lose all their heat. Once the whole stack is fried, you are ready for assembly. Take a tortilla and dip in the mole sauce. Dios mio, it will probably still be a bit warm so don't burn those fingers.

Plop down the sauced tortilla in your baking dish, fill on one side with about 1/4 cup of the turkey mix, and roll it up.

Proceed with the rest until you have nice little assembly line of delicious turkey cylinders. Now, wash your hands (they'll be gunky from all that mole dunkin') and open up a cerveza. The hard part is over and it is smooth sailing from here. Preheat the oven to 350, pour some of the remaining sauce on top to give the enchiladas a nice steamy bath and cover with some shredded queso, a good melting variety like monterrey jack works best.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, garnish with some chopped cilantro and sour cream (or crema or thick yogurt as you see here), dar mas gracias, and grub.